HOW MANY MILES TO BETHLEHEM?

This poetic retelling of the Christmas story adds drama and immediacy through the use of alternating first-person narratives. Each page focuses on one member of the cast of characters, including people, animals, angels, and the shining star. Within just a few lines of text, each character’s distinctive voice provides a personal introduction and some element of the story that skillfully advances the plot in an unbroken dramatic arc toward a compelling concluding page that could stand alone as a poem of faith. Opulent paintings in a spectrum of jewel tones advance the dramatic quality, often through compositions that seem to capture individual characters or scenes in a play. Thoughtful design elements include a variety of perspectives and illustration size and striking midnight-blue endpapers spangled with stars and one floating feather. Though it’s a difficult task to add anything new to the multitude of Nativity stories, Crossley-Holland and Malone have succeeded. (Picture book. 4-8)